Advocacy in Action
- November 27, 2024
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Grazing
Federal legislation on the use of targeted grazing to reduce fuels and lower the risk of wildfires was discussed last week at a legislative hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Federal Lands Subcommittee.
One of the nine bills discussed included H.R. 7666, introduced by Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, and supported by the California Farm Bureau. The bill would increase livestock grazing to reduce wildfire risk by directing the U.S. Forest Service to expand the use of proactive, targeted grazing in fuels management programs. An identical provision was included in the House-passed Fix Our Forests Act, part of a comprehensive package that would encourage active forest management and support community resiliency to wildfires by expediting environmental analyses, reducing frivolous lawsuits and increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration projects.
At last week’s hearing in Washington, D.C., Tuolumne County rancher Sherri Brennan, a California Farm Bureau member, advocated for LaMalfa’s bill, which she said would help prevention and maintenance. She shared her experience from the 2013 Rim Fire that burned more than 257,000 acres in her county. Brennan told the subcommittee that targeted grazing for fuels reduction can remove up to 1,000 pounds of fuels per acre.
Bay-Delta Plan
Following the state’s 2018 adoption of unimpaired flow standards for the lower San Joaquin River and its tributaries—the Merced, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers—the California State Water Resources Control Board is holding workshops for proposed flows standards of 45% to 65% for the Sacramento River watershed and Bay-Delta. The board is also considering an approach known as voluntary agreements that are supported by water users as a more holistic approach than flows alone. The latest draft Bay-Delta Plan is open for public comment. Public comments are due Dec. 19. On behalf of its members in affected counties, the California Farm Bureau is conducting outreach for county Farm Bureaus ahead of a Dec. 13 workshop. Farm Bureau staff has prepared a water supply impact summary that may be accessed under the “Water” tab under “Advocacy” at www.cfbf.com.
Water quality
California Farm Bureau staff is reviewing draft regulations, attending hearings and submitting comments to the state and regional agencies that would affect several agricultural sectors, including commercial wineries and dairy operations. The North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board set a hearing for Dec. 4 to adopt a draft order proposing waste discharge requirements that would establish water quality regulations for commercial vineyards in Sonoma and Mendocino counties.
Affecting dairies statewide, the California State Water Resources Control Board released a draft order that creates a new regulatory framework for nitrogen discharges and makes certain components precedential. The order includes establishing a nitrogen discharge limit, enforceable final numeric dairy waste land application rates, and providing short-term and long-term alternative water supply solutions to provide safe drinking water to residents reliant on affected domestic wells. Comments are due Dec. 6.
Water reporting
California Farm Bureau staff has participated in workshops and is developing written comments on proposed changes to the state’s existing water measurement reporting regulations. The California State Water Resources Control Board announced the proposed changes to simplify existing reporting requirements and improve compliance and to facilitate alternative compliance plans and increase flexibility. Affected water-rights holders are required to report the water they divert as mandated in the 2015 Senate Bill 88. The board’s formal rulemaking process continues in 2025.
- November 6, 2024
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Regenerative agriculture
California Farm Bureau attended the California State Board of Food and Agriculture meeting in October to continue its active participation as the state develops a definition for regenerative agriculture. The state board said its staff and the chair of the Regenerative Agriculture Working Group reached out to representatives on the Environmental Farming Act Science Advisory Panel for their input on the proposed definition and how it would be implemented. They said they are incorporating the panel’s comments into the revised definition and hope to have a definition to the state board in the coming weeks. The plan is to discuss the regenerative agriculture definition at the state board’s December meeting. Farm Bureau will attend the meeting and continue monitoring the issue.
Earlier this year, Farm Bureau sent a comment letter to the California Department of Food and Agriculture expressing its concerns with what is being proposed and offered suggestions to ensure efforts to define regenerative agriculture serve the agricultural community and Farm Bureau members. Some groups have pressed the state to take a narrow approach to the definition and to have organic farming practices to serve as a baseline.
In its letter, Farm Bureau said regenerative agriculture should be focused on soil health only and be consistent with scientific literature. The letter also said the term should be the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture so that interstate commerce is not disrupted by conflicting claims made by different states with different definitions.
What’s more, Farm Bureau said defining and accepting the term would create more confusion among California farmers, ranchers and consumers, as there are already many environmental terms placed on the sector, including sustainable agriculture and ecosystem services.
In addition, the letter said defining regenerative agriculture is an effort to pick winners and losers among California farmers and ranchers. It would create another term to fragment the agriculture sector further. Instead of two categories—conventional and organic agriculture—there would be three: conventional, organic and regenerative, Farm Bureau said.
Labor relations
At its Oct. 30 meeting, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board approved a decision to sublease office space from the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, an environmental justice and unionization advocacy group known for proposing a $26 an hour minimum wage for farmworkers to the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. The group has also staged a so-called “toxic tour” with local and state officials pushing a narrative that agricultural use of crop protection materials poses a “toxic” risk.
California Farm Bureau and other agricultural employer stakeholders expressed concern that subleasing space in Santa Maria would compromise what impartiality remains in the ALRB’s dealings with agricultural employers and the principal union seeking to unionize California farms and ranches, the United Farm Workers. The labor relations board voted unanimously to approve the decision.
Energy
On Oct. 16, the California Air Resources Board closed a second comment period for the low carbon fuel standard. California Farm Bureau advocated for continued crediting to avoid methane, saying dairy families have been doing their part, thanks in part to state investment in proven technologies such as methane digesters and the state Alternative Manure Management Program to reduce emissions of critically important methane. The item will be heard at the Nov. 8 CARB board meeting in Riverside and on Zoom.
Farm Bureau thanked CARB for extending its proposed deadline for credit generation for hydrogen produced fossil gas from 2030 to 2035, as having the extra years is crucial to ramp up the supply of hydrogen and make it into a viable economy. However, Farm Bureau remains concerned about the limits applied to credit generation from agricultural lipid feedstocks. Farm Bureau has asked that all decisions be science based.
Farm Bureau recognized CARB for aligning the description of biomass waste with local, state and federal requirements. Farm Bureau supports a new carbon intensity for low carbon-intensity electricity produced by fuel cell from biomethane.
- October 9, 2024
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Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that could impact California agricultural employers. Senate Bill 399 by state Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Silicon Valley, restricts employers’ ability to communicate with employees about political issues if the employee and employer are at odds about the underlying issue.
Proponents claimed the bill’s restrictions on speech are meant primarily to restrain employers from engaging “captive audience” meetings to discourage employees from unionizing. The exact reach of SB 399 remains to be seen, and there are ongoing concerns about infringement on employers’ First Amendment rights. California Farm Bureau had sought a veto of SB 399.
Newsom vetoed SB 1299 by state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose. The bill would have created a rebuttable presumption of work-relatedness in the event of a farm employee’s episode of heat illness if the employee worked during a week or pay period in which weather conditions triggered implementation of the state’s heat illness prevention standard.
Cortese’s rationale for the bill was that enforcement by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, has proved ineffective. Newsom said he vetoed the bill because it was the wrong tool to address the matter. Farm Bureau had encouraged a veto.
The California Fish and Game Commission is holding public meetings this week, during which it will consider and potentially act on a petition to list the western burrowing owl as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act. Threatened species may not be “taken,” meaning killed or possessed without proper authorization. Punishment for violation is a fine of not less than $25,000 or more than $50,000 for each violation.
The California Fish and Game Code provides a “take” exemption during routine and ongoing agricultural activities. It is important to note, however, that when an accidental take occurs, the person must report it to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife within 10 days. California Farm Bureau staff will attend the commission meeting to provide public comment and remains engaged on this issue.
- September 18, 2024
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The California Farm Bureau and the California Cattlemen’s Foundation submitted a joint comment letter on the draft update of the Bi-State Action Plan to conserve the distinct population segment of the greater sage grouse in California and Nevada.
The letter offered comments on several risks and their relative threat levels identified in the plan. They include permitted livestock grazing, wildfire, wild horse overpopulation and range expansion.
The plan’s identification of permitted livestock grazing as a “low-level threat across the entire Bi-State area” was a welcome attestation to the beneficial relationship between managed livestock grazing and the greater sage grouse.
The letter noted that wildfires remain the biggest threat to greater sage grouse populations, with more than 15 million acres of sagebrush steppe vegetation burned between 2000 and 2018.
The letter argued that the draft update’s proposed action “to minimize and eliminate the risk of wildfire...makes no specific mention of the role livestock grazing plays” in curbing wildfire dangers.
“Livestock grazing reduces fine fuels on the landscape, resulting in a reduced risk of catastrophic fire,” the letter said.
In addition, the letter raised concerns about wild horses and burros increasing in population and expanding beyond designated management areas.
It urged the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to increase management of the horses and burros to “mitigate habitat loss” for the greater sage grouse.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has until July 2025 to conduct a status review for the white sturgeon that will inform the California Fish and Game Commission’s final decision on whether to list the species as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act.
As part of the process, CDFW is soliciting information regarding the species’ ecology, habitat, the degree of immediacy of threats to its reproduction or survival, adequacy of existing management and recommendations for management of the species.
The petition to list the species identifies insufficient freshwater flows, agricultural diversions, water-quality conditions, overharvest, habitat loss and harmful algal blooms as threats to white sturgeon survival.
California Farm Bureau will provide comments on the petition, which could broadly affect water users, including potentially requiring increased frequency of adequate river flow into, through and out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The California State Board of Food and Agriculture hosted a working session this month to consider the Environmental Farming Act Science Advisory Panel’s draft recommendation to create a definition of regenerative agriculture.
The advisory panel reviews and documents agriculture’s positive impacts on the environment and examines issues such as ecosystem services and how they relate to agriculture.
In comments to the state board and California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, the California Farm Bureau identified several fundamental concerns with the proposal and provided suggestions to ensure the effort moves forward in a manner that best serves the agricultural community and Farm Bureau members.
Key topics of debate among board members included certification, whether organic should be the baseline for regenerative agriculture and whether to develop a pathway to regenerative.
After much debate and public comment, the state board decided the draft definition wasn’t suitable to be moved forward in its current state.
The board asked that the draft definition be returned to the working group for additional adjustments and for more discussion at a future state board meeting.
In addition, the board asked that CDFA staff consult with the Environmental Farming Act Science Advisory Panel to discuss how regenerative agriculture would fit into state programs and grants.
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